For this week, let's keep it simple. Watch the following video and in the comments section, post a reaction to Mr. Robinson's ideas. It can be anything as long as it addresses something Mr. Robinson says in his speech.
If you can't view the above video, you may access it by clicking here.
So, even though he doesn't directly propose a solution in the lecture, he seems to be saying that classrooms that take a divergent thinking approach will serve students much better than those that take the traditional approach to education.
Last semester, I wrote a term paper for a psychology class, Theories of Learning, that explored different kinds of creative problem solving. The researchers identified two types: convergent problem solving and divergent problem solving. Now, Ken Robinson identifies convergent thinking as part of the problem, but I believe it is just as important to developing creativity as divergent thinking. Only when it's the only option does it become a problem - and this is generally due to the fact that it's easier to assess.
Divergent problem solving: as he said, it is coming up with a multitude of answers for a single question, i.e. how many ways can you use a paperclip? or how many ways can you use a brick? It is essential for idea generation.
Convergent problem solving: the process of coming up with a series of steps, methods, or solutions to a defined problem. For example, a question might be, how can you make a tower out of bricks? The student then has to use theories of gravitation, economic restraints, and other practical concerns to develop an effective and efficient PLAN to solving a problem. Without convergent problem solving, you cannot achieve the ideas produced by divergent problem solving.
Basically, the two work together to produce the innovations of our time.
Here is another example that I am currently working through: As a writer, I need to be able to come up with an original story and implement it in an enjoyable and fulfilling way. Divergent thinking would be to brainstorm the story and its characters. In children, you see stories veer off in many different directions with really no rhyme or reason. There is a lot of creativity, but the story is often not what anyone would call "publishable." That is divergent thinking. Convergent thinking would be to fit the ideas generated by divergent thinking into a plot structure (aka the hero's journey) and character archetypes (if you choose to use archetypes instead of original characters). This brings the story into the realm of what has been predetermined to be enjoyable to mass markets. Even if you don't choose to follow a specific plot structure, you still need to find ways to fit the basic parts of a story (character, setting, plot, theme) into the overall purpose and idea.
Both processes are necessary and both processes must be practiced and honed.
The question is, how do you do that in your classroom? (Especially when you have a curriculum handed down by the state that you HAVE to follow?)
Melanie, I think you're absolutely right. I also feel that we shouldn't choose between divergent and convergent thinking, but rather, we should infuse both methods in the classroom. And I don't think implementing it is as difficult as you might think. You just used an excellent example of how to utilize both thinking processes; writing a short fictitious narrative. Start with all the general details; theme, setting, character, main plot, etc. And then organize those details into a cohesive sequence and fill in all the empty gaps with details. You could easily do that in an English classroom.
Another example: say you give all of your students a two page passage, article, or short story and have them read, re-read, and interpret. You could ask them to write down 3 different possible interpretations of the same passage (divergent thinking) and then ask them to pick at one interpretation and write an organized essay that explains and supports that interpretation (convergent thinking). If divergent thinking is finding multiple solutions or answers to one problem or question, doesn't brainstorming and jotting down whatever random thing comes to mind count as divergent thinking? And then there's the writing process, the research, outlining, organizing, proof-reading, etc. Wouldn't that count as convergent thinking?
Don't forget that a curriculum is WHAT you have to teach and not necessarily HOW you have to teach it. :-)
What other activities could count as divergent and convergent thinking in an English classroom? Perhaps analyzing character motivations? Or
"What other activities could count as divergent and convergent thinking in an English classroom? Perhaps analyzing character motivations?"
I think that the idea of creative problem solving is that you're generating some solution to a problem. So analyzing texts would not really involve either of these processes. Interpreting texts would also involve analysis of pre-existing texts.
Divergent and even convergent problem solving, I think, would fall into the Bloom's Taxonomy level of Synthesis. Synthesis requires that students understand the elements of a lesson so they can generate their own conclusions/artworks/solutions based on them. In a way, then, convergent problem solving would have students have apply their own creativity to the "restraints" of what they have learned in a lesson.
For example, in a technology class - the school is participating in a robotics competition. They are provided with a game, a list of 'legal' materials, and a budget. The brainstorming process involves a mix of divergent and convergent thinking. Divergent thinking allows students to brainstorm all the potential robots they could build to compete in the game. It doesn't require any knowledge of physics, robotics, programming, or even finances. All it requires is that students use their creativity to imagine a product that can operate in a certain way. However, a small amount of convergent thinking is required, because, after all, the robot needs to be able to compete in the game. So the designs might share "arms" or elevators or four-wheel drive, but for the most part they are not necessarily physically possible. Indeed, at this stage, any student in the school can produce a design.
The people who can make the design WORK are the ones who understand the basic elements of physics, programming, and robotics. Mentors teach them the formula they will need to, for example, make a robot robust. Only once they understand the formula (and, perhaps, a CAD/design program) can they create the blueprints and actually manufacture a robust robot. In addition, students must be able to synthesis general knowledge from across the curriculum (algebra and calculus for the physics and engineering of the project; accounting for the budget; writing skills for the letters that must go to potential sponsors; etc.). This is the essence of convergent thinking: bringing all of the "crazy" ideas together into a plausible design (and product).
It's quite easy to come up with projects for science classes, considering how important experimentation and creation are. Problem solving can take up a large amount of time (although robotics teams somehow manage to cram everything into six weeks). What I'm trying to say is that it's difficult to come up with activities that are time-efficient and yet fulfilling and relevant to an ELA classroom.
Another idea I had was to use connections to international classrooms to identify problems in the local and global community and brainstorm solutions to them (based on the knowledge they have gleaned from texts they've read and research they've done)?
Like Melanie said, Robinson doesn't seem to have an answer to the problems he's mentioning, but he brings up many good points. Overall, what I think he's trying to say is that our education system here in America is failing us. Obviously, he doesn't say it in those words but if you look at everything he says, from the idea that we cater to the children we see as "academic" and tend to leave the others behind to the idea that students grow out of their Divergent thinking as they become "educated", in short, he seems to be saying that our education system is failing our country and something needs to be done about this. And I wholeheartedly agree. I want to be a teacher, so that maybe I can be useful to students and help them in a way that I often didn't feel helped when I was a student, but just because I want to be a teacher doesn't mean that I enjoy our education system. Honestly, I think our education system kind of sucks. I watch a lot of Japanese anime and I know that's not the best example and, yeah, it's anime but the education system in Japan, and I've done research on it outside of watching those animes, is about 10 times better, or more, than our education system. Our government keeps complaining about how we're falling behind other countries in education, but they never stop to think that it's somehow THEIR fault and not ours. They blame us for not being as intelligent, but really it's the people who decide how to teach us to be intelligent who are to blame. Like Robinson says, the educational system in this country is like a factory, standardizing the way we learn and I don't think you can standardize learning or intelligence. I think we rely too much on tests to tell us how smart someone is, instead of just measuring how much someone might have grasped, and then we compare people because of it. If you look at the education systems in other countries, they are light years ahead of us. I read an article about the education in Finland once and I was amazed at the progress they've made compared to us, and we just keep rehashing the same things over and over.
Sorry! It wouldn't let me fit everything I wanted to say.
It's not wonder kids are dropping out of school like flies anymore, and so many kids refuse college. In the UK, the price of college is phenomenally smaller than here in America. A semester at a college or a university there is roughly the price of a couple hundred dollars here, not a couple hundred thousand. It's not amazing that other countries are ahead of us academically, it's common sense. My best friend is not academically smart, according to what school has taught us to look at as smart. She is common sense smart, which I think school sometimes strips us of, and she is artistically smart. I was lucky in school because I love to write fiction, and so naturally English became my subject because, in being that I loved to write, I also loved to read so that I could write better. I was terrible at almost every other subject. And because I couldn't do the math or understand it like other students, or because science didn't make sense to me, I felt like an idiot because the school system only cares about how well you do on tests and I didn't do well. I felt stupid, and I'm only now realizing that I'm just talented in a different way. My best friend didn't go to college, because she had always been told she was a failure in school. So why would she want to continue failing in a school that costs millions of dollars? And, a lot of the time, I wonder if she made a better decision than I did. I want to be a teacher more than anything, but she's happy and often I am miserable because again and again I feel like failures in classes that I'm required to take, all for the sake of giving money to our school, and the only time I feel even remotely smart is in Lit classes but I am also realizing that the education I was provided in high school is lackluster because I am not equipped with the skills necessary to do Lit work. My school had never heard of "Close reading" before and now I fall behind when I'm required to do things like that. Our school system needs to stop holding every single person to the same expectations because every single person is different. My best friend sucked at math, but she can blow you away with her drawing. I can't do science to save my life, but I'm on the track to writing my own novel. But they expect everyone to be able to do the same things, pass the same questions on a test, and that's not fair to us. And that''s something other countries get much better than we do.
I feel like it is important to change with the times and adapt. This also applies to teaching. The introduction of technology to the world has created a sort of arms race for the future generation. It is no longer if you are just smart that you will be able to succeed. Now, there is a stress on being a phenomenal person and having multiple talents. How can you innovate the world? This can be seen as a huge feet to students which makes them not want to do as much as they can. The heavy use of technology has also created students to become complacent with not using their own knowledge and research to find answers. It is so simple in modern society to simply "Google" an answer. It is no longer a struggle to find an answer. Also the students are getting distracted by the constant media usage. There are so many ways to be able to get distracted whether it be Youtube, Facebook, etc. Students need be shown that they are individuals. Each have a different mind and different wants that they can achieve with hard work.
So, even though he doesn't directly propose a solution in the lecture, he seems to be saying that classrooms that take a divergent thinking approach will serve students much better than those that take the traditional approach to education.
ReplyDeleteLast semester, I wrote a term paper for a psychology class, Theories of Learning, that explored different kinds of creative problem solving. The researchers identified two types: convergent problem solving and divergent problem solving. Now, Ken Robinson identifies convergent thinking as part of the problem, but I believe it is just as important to developing creativity as divergent thinking. Only when it's the only option does it become a problem - and this is generally due to the fact that it's easier to assess.
Divergent problem solving: as he said, it is coming up with a multitude of answers for a single question, i.e. how many ways can you use a paperclip? or how many ways can you use a brick? It is essential for idea generation.
Convergent problem solving: the process of coming up with a series of steps, methods, or solutions to a defined problem. For example, a question might be, how can you make a tower out of bricks? The student then has to use theories of gravitation, economic restraints, and other practical concerns to develop an effective and efficient PLAN to solving a problem. Without convergent problem solving, you cannot achieve the ideas produced by divergent problem solving.
Basically, the two work together to produce the innovations of our time.
Here is another example that I am currently working through: As a writer, I need to be able to come up with an original story and implement it in an enjoyable and fulfilling way. Divergent thinking would be to brainstorm the story and its characters. In children, you see stories veer off in many different directions with really no rhyme or reason. There is a lot of creativity, but the story is often not what anyone would call "publishable." That is divergent thinking.
Convergent thinking would be to fit the ideas generated by divergent thinking into a plot structure (aka the hero's journey) and character archetypes (if you choose to use archetypes instead of original characters). This brings the story into the realm of what has been predetermined to be enjoyable to mass markets. Even if you don't choose to follow a specific plot structure, you still need to find ways to fit the basic parts of a story (character, setting, plot, theme) into the overall purpose and idea.
Both processes are necessary and both processes must be practiced and honed.
The question is, how do you do that in your classroom? (Especially when you have a curriculum handed down by the state that you HAVE to follow?)
Melanie, I think you're absolutely right. I also feel that we shouldn't choose between divergent and convergent thinking, but rather, we should infuse both methods in the classroom. And I don't think implementing it is as difficult as you might think. You just used an excellent example of how to utilize both thinking processes; writing a short fictitious narrative. Start with all the general details; theme, setting, character, main plot, etc. And then organize those details into a cohesive sequence and fill in all the empty gaps with details. You could easily do that in an English classroom.
DeleteAnother example: say you give all of your students a two page passage, article, or short story and have them read, re-read, and interpret. You could ask them to write down 3 different possible interpretations of the same passage (divergent thinking) and then ask them to pick at one interpretation and write an organized essay that explains and supports that interpretation (convergent thinking). If divergent thinking is finding multiple solutions or answers to one problem or question, doesn't brainstorming and jotting down whatever random thing comes to mind count as divergent thinking? And then there's the writing process, the research, outlining, organizing, proof-reading, etc. Wouldn't that count as convergent thinking?
Don't forget that a curriculum is WHAT you have to teach and not necessarily HOW you have to teach it. :-)
What other activities could count as divergent and convergent thinking in an English classroom? Perhaps analyzing character motivations? Or
"What other activities could count as divergent and convergent thinking in an English classroom? Perhaps analyzing character motivations?"
DeleteI think that the idea of creative problem solving is that you're generating some solution to a problem. So analyzing texts would not really involve either of these processes. Interpreting texts would also involve analysis of pre-existing texts.
Divergent and even convergent problem solving, I think, would fall into the Bloom's Taxonomy level of Synthesis. Synthesis requires that students understand the elements of a lesson so they can generate their own conclusions/artworks/solutions based on them. In a way, then, convergent problem solving would have students have apply their own creativity to the "restraints" of what they have learned in a lesson.
For example, in a technology class - the school is participating in a robotics competition. They are provided with a game, a list of 'legal' materials, and a budget.
The brainstorming process involves a mix of divergent and convergent thinking. Divergent thinking allows students to brainstorm all the potential robots they could build to compete in the game. It doesn't require any knowledge of physics, robotics, programming, or even finances. All it requires is that students use their creativity to imagine a product that can operate in a certain way. However, a small amount of convergent thinking is required, because, after all, the robot needs to be able to compete in the game. So the designs might share "arms" or elevators or four-wheel drive, but for the most part they are not necessarily physically possible. Indeed, at this stage, any student in the school can produce a design.
The people who can make the design WORK are the ones who understand the basic elements of physics, programming, and robotics. Mentors teach them the formula they will need to, for example, make a robot robust. Only once they understand the formula (and, perhaps, a CAD/design program) can they create the blueprints and actually manufacture a robust robot. In addition, students must be able to synthesis general knowledge from across the curriculum (algebra and calculus for the physics and engineering of the project; accounting for the budget; writing skills for the letters that must go to potential sponsors; etc.). This is the essence of convergent thinking: bringing all of the "crazy" ideas together into a plausible design (and product).
It's quite easy to come up with projects for science classes, considering how important experimentation and creation are. Problem solving can take up a large amount of time (although robotics teams somehow manage to cram everything into six weeks). What I'm trying to say is that it's difficult to come up with activities that are time-efficient and yet fulfilling and relevant to an ELA classroom.
Another idea I had was to use connections to international classrooms to identify problems in the local and global community and brainstorm solutions to them (based on the knowledge they have gleaned from texts they've read and research they've done)?
Like Melanie said, Robinson doesn't seem to have an answer to the problems he's mentioning, but he brings up many good points. Overall, what I think he's trying to say is that our education system here in America is failing us. Obviously, he doesn't say it in those words but if you look at everything he says, from the idea that we cater to the children we see as "academic" and tend to leave the others behind to the idea that students grow out of their Divergent thinking as they become "educated", in short, he seems to be saying that our education system is failing our country and something needs to be done about this. And I wholeheartedly agree. I want to be a teacher, so that maybe I can be useful to students and help them in a way that I often didn't feel helped when I was a student, but just because I want to be a teacher doesn't mean that I enjoy our education system. Honestly, I think our education system kind of sucks. I watch a lot of Japanese anime and I know that's not the best example and, yeah, it's anime but the education system in Japan, and I've done research on it outside of watching those animes, is about 10 times better, or more, than our education system. Our government keeps complaining about how we're falling behind other countries in education, but they never stop to think that it's somehow THEIR fault and not ours. They blame us for not being as intelligent, but really it's the people who decide how to teach us to be intelligent who are to blame. Like Robinson says, the educational system in this country is like a factory, standardizing the way we learn and I don't think you can standardize learning or intelligence. I think we rely too much on tests to tell us how smart someone is, instead of just measuring how much someone might have grasped, and then we compare people because of it. If you look at the education systems in other countries, they are light years ahead of us. I read an article about the education in Finland once and I was amazed at the progress they've made compared to us, and we just keep rehashing the same things over and over.
ReplyDeleteSorry! It wouldn't let me fit everything I wanted to say.
DeleteIt's not wonder kids are dropping out of school like flies anymore, and so many kids refuse college. In the UK, the price of college is phenomenally smaller than here in America. A semester at a college or a university there is roughly the price of a couple hundred dollars here, not a couple hundred thousand. It's not amazing that other countries are ahead of us academically, it's common sense. My best friend is not academically smart, according to what school has taught us to look at as smart. She is common sense smart, which I think school sometimes strips us of, and she is artistically smart. I was lucky in school because I love to write fiction, and so naturally English became my subject because, in being that I loved to write, I also loved to read so that I could write better. I was terrible at almost every other subject. And because I couldn't do the math or understand it like other students, or because science didn't make sense to me, I felt like an idiot because the school system only cares about how well you do on tests and I didn't do well. I felt stupid, and I'm only now realizing that I'm just talented in a different way. My best friend didn't go to college, because she had always been told she was a failure in school. So why would she want to continue failing in a school that costs millions of dollars? And, a lot of the time, I wonder if she made a better decision than I did. I want to be a teacher more than anything, but she's happy and often I am miserable because again and again I feel like failures in classes that I'm required to take, all for the sake of giving money to our school, and the only time I feel even remotely smart is in Lit classes but I am also realizing that the education I was provided in high school is lackluster because I am not equipped with the skills necessary to do Lit work. My school had never heard of "Close reading" before and now I fall behind when I'm required to do things like that. Our school system needs to stop holding every single person to the same expectations because every single person is different. My best friend sucked at math, but she can blow you away with her drawing. I can't do science to save my life, but I'm on the track to writing my own novel. But they expect everyone to be able to do the same things, pass the same questions on a test, and that's not fair to us. And that''s something other countries get much better than we do.
I feel like it is important to change with the times and adapt. This also applies to teaching. The introduction of technology to the world has created a sort of arms race for the future generation. It is no longer if you are just smart that you will be able to succeed. Now, there is a stress on being a phenomenal person and having multiple talents. How can you innovate the world? This can be seen as a huge feet to students which makes them not want to do as much as they can. The heavy use of technology has also created students to become complacent with not using their own knowledge and research to find answers. It is so simple in modern society to simply "Google" an answer. It is no longer a struggle to find an answer. Also the students are getting distracted by the constant media usage. There are so many ways to be able to get distracted whether it be Youtube, Facebook, etc. Students need be shown that they are individuals. Each have a different mind and different wants that they can achieve with hard work.
ReplyDelete